At Swim-Two-Birds (12 page)

What class of a death will you die? asked Sweeny.

Not difficult to relate, said the other, I go now to Eas Dubhthaigh and a gust of wind will get under me until it slams me into the waterfall for drowning, and I shall be interred in the churchyard of a saint, and afterwards I shall attain Heaven. That is my end.

Thereafter, on the recital of valedictory staves, Sweeny fared again in the upper air on his path across sky-fear and rain-squalls to Erin, dwelling here and there in the high places and in the low and nestling in the heart of enduring oaks, never restful till he had again attained ever-delightful Glen Bolcain. There he encountered a demented woman till he fled before her, rising stealthily nimbly lightly from the summit of the peaks till he reached Glen Boirche in the south and committed himself to these ranns.

    Chill chill is my bed at dark
    on the peak of Glen Boirche,
    I am weakly, no mantle on me,
    lodged in a sharp-stirked holly.

    Glen Bolcain of the twinkle spring
    it is my rest-place to abide in;
    when Samhain comes, when summer comes,
    it is my rest-place where I abide.

    For my sustenance at night,
    the whole that my hands can glean
    from the gloom of the oak-gloomed oaks -
    the herbs and the plenteous fruits.

    Fine hazel-nuts and apples, berries,
    blackberries and oak-tree acorns,
    generous raspberries, they are my due,
    haws of the prickle-hawy hawthorn.

    Wild sorrels, wild garlic faultless,
    clean-topped cress,
    they expel from me my hunger,
    acorns from the mountain, melle-root.

After a prolonged travel and a searching in the skies, Sweeny arrived at nightfall at the shore of the widespread Loch Ree, his resting-place being the fork of the tree of Tiobradan for that night. It snowed on his tree that night, the snow being the worst of all the other snows he had endured since the feathers grew on his body, and he was constrained to the recital of these following verses.

    Terrible is my plight this night
    the pure air has pierced my body,
    lacerated feet, my cheek is green -
    Mighty God, it is my due.

    It is bad living without a house,
    Peerless Christ, it is a piteous life!
    a filling of green-tufted fine cresses
    a drink of cold water from a clear rill.

    Stumbling out of the withered tree-tops
    walking the furze - it is truth -
    wolves for company, man-shunning,
    running with the red stag through fields.

If the evil hag had not invoked Christ against me that I should perform leaps for her amusement, I would not have relapsed into madness, said Sweeny.

Come here, said Lamont, what's this about jumps?

Hopping around, you know, said Furriskey.

The story, said learned Shanahan in a learned explanatory manner, is about this fellow Sweeny that argued the toss with the clergy and came off second-best at the wind-up. There was a curse - a malediction - put down in the book against him. The upshot is that your man becomes a bloody bird.

I see, said Lamont.

Do you see it, Mr. Furriskey, said Shanahan. What happens? He is changed into a bird for his pains and he could go from here to Carlow in one hop. Do you see it, Mr. Lamont?

Oh I see that much all right, said Lamont, but the man that I'm thinking of is a man by the name of Sergeant Craddock, the first man in Ireland at the long jump in the time that's gone.

Craddock?

That was always one thing, said Shanahan wisely, that the Irish race was always noted for, one place where the world had to give us best. With all his faults and by God he has plenty, the Irishman can jump. By God he can jump. That's one thing the Irish race is honoured for no matter where it goes or where you find it - jumping. The world looks up to us there.

We were good jumpers from the start, said Furriskey.

It was in the early days of the Gaelic League, said Lamont. This Sergeant Craddock was an ordinary bloody bobby on the beat, down the country somewhere. A bit of a bags, too, from what I heard. One fine morning he wakes up and is ordered to proceed if you don't mind to the Gaelic League Sports or whatever it was that was being held in the town that fine spring Sunday. To keep his eye open for sedition do you know and all the rest of it. All right. In he marches to do his duty, getting the back of the bloody hand from the women and plenty of guff from the young fellows. Maybe he was poking around too much and sticking his nose where it wasn't wanted...

I know what you mean, said Shanahan.

Anyway, didn't he raise the dander of the head of the house, the big man, the head bottle-washer. Up he came to my cool sergeant with his feathers ruffled and his comb as red as a turkeycock and read out a long rigmarole in Irish to your man's face.

That'll do you, says the sergeant, keep that stuff for them that wants it. I don't know what you're saying, man.

So you don't know your own language, says the head man.

I do, says the sergeant, I know plenty of English.

Your man then asks the sergeant his business in Irish and what he's doing there in the field at all.

Speak English, says the sergeant.

So be damned but your man gets his rag out and calls the sergeant a bloody English spy.

Well maybe he was right, said Furriskey.

Shh, said Shanahan.

But wait till I tell you. The sergeant just looked at him as cool as blazes.

You're wrong,
says he,
and I'm as good a man as you or any other man,
says he.

You're a bloody English bags, says your man in Irish.

And I'll prove it, says the sergeant.

And with that your man gets black in the face and turns his back and walks to the bloody platform where all the lads were doing the Irish dancing with their girls, competitions of one kind and another, you know. Oh it was all the fashion at one time, you were bloody nothing if you couldn't do your Walls of Limerick. And here too were my men with the fiddles and the pipes playing away there at the reels and jigs for further orders. Do you know what I mean?

Oh I know what you're talking about all right, said Shanahan, the national music of our country, Rodney's Glory, the Star of Munster and the Rights of Man.

The Flogging Reel and Drive the Donkey, you can't beat them, said Furriskey.

That's the ticket, said Lamont. Anyway, didn't your man get into a dark corner with his butties till they hatched out a plan to best the sergeant. All right. Back went your man to the sergeant, who was taking it easy in the shade of a tree.

You said a while ago, says your man, that you were a better man than any man here. Can you jump?

I can not, says the sergeant, but I'm no worse than the next man.

We'll see, says your man.

Now be damned but hadn't they a man in the tent there from the county Cork, a bloody dandy at the long jump, a man that had a name, a man that was known in the whole country. A party by the name of Bagenal, the champion of all Ireland.

Gob that was a cute one, said Furriskey.

A very cute one. But wait till I tell you. The two of them lined up and a hell of a big crowd gathering there to watch. Here was my nice Bagenal as proud as a bloody turkey in his green pants, showing off the legs. Beside him stands another man, a man called Craddock, a member of the polis. His tunic is off him on the grass but the rest of his clothes is still on. He is standing as you find him with his blue pants and his big canal-barges on his two feet. I'm telling you it was something to look at. It was a sight to see.

I don't doubt it, said Shanahan.

Yes. Well Bagenal is the first off, sailing through the air like a bird and down in a shower of sand. What was the score?

Eighteen feet, said Furriskey.

Not at all man, twenty-two. Twenty-two feet was the jump of Bagenal there and then and by God the shout the people gave was enough to make the sergeant puke what was inside him and plenty more that he never swallowed.

Twenty-two feet is a good jump any day, said Shanahan.

After the cheering had died down, said Lamont, my man Bagenal strolls around and turns his back on the sergeant and asks for a cigarette and starts to blather out of him to his friends. What does my sergeant do, do you think, Mr. Shanahan.

I'm saying nothing, said knowing Shanahan.

By God you're a wise man. Sergeant Craddock keeps his mouth shut, takes a little run and jumps twenty-four feet six.

Do you tell me that! cried Furriskey.

Twenty four feet six.

I'm not surprised, said Shanahan in his amazement, I'm not surprised. Go where you like in the wide world, you will always find that the Irishman is looked up to for his jumping.

Right enough, said Furriskey, the name of Ireland is honoured for that.

Go to Russia, said Shanahan, go to China, go to France. Everywhere and all the time it is hats off and a gra-macree to the Jumping Irishman. Ask who you like they'll all tell you that. The Jumping Irishman.

It's a thing, said Furriskey, that will always stand to us jumping.

When everything's said, said Lamont, the Irishman has his points. He's not the last man that was made now.

He is not, said Furriskey.

When everything had been said by Sweeny, said droning dark-voiced Finn, a glimmering of reason assailed the madman till it turned his steps in the direction of his people that he might dwell with them and trust them. But holy Ronan in his cell was acquainted by angels of the intention of Sweeny and prayed God that he should not be loosed from his frenzy until his soul had been first loosed from his body and here is a summary of the result. When the madman reached the middle of Slieve Fuaid, there were strange apparitions before him there, red headless trunks and trunkless heads and five stubbly rough grey heads without trunk or body between them, screaming and squealing and bounding hither and thither about the dark road beleaguering and besetting him and shouting their mad abuse, until he soared in his fright aloft in front of them. Piteous was the terror and the wailing cries, and the din and the harsh-screaming tumult of the heads and the dogsheads and the goatsheads in his pursuit, thudding on his thighs and his calves and on the nape of his neck and knocking against trees and the butts of rocks - a wild torrent of villainy from the breast of a high mountain, not enough resting for a drink of water for mad Sweeny till he finally achieved his peace in the tree on the summit of Slieve Eichneach. Here he devoted his time to the composition and recital of melodious staves on the subject of his evil plight.

After that he went on his career of wild folly from Luachair Dheaghaidh to Fiodh Gaibhle of the clean streams and the elegant branches, remaining there for one year on the sustenance of saffron heart-red holly-berries and black-brown oak-acorns, with draughts of water from the Gabhal, concluding there with the fashioning of this lay.

    Ululation, I am Sweeny,
    my body is a corpse;
    sleeping or music nevermore -
    only the soughing of the storm-wind.

    I have journeyed from Luachair Dheaghaidh
    to the edge of Fiodh Gaibhle,
    this is my fare - I conceal it not -
    ivy-berries, oak-mast.

After that Sweeny in his restlessness came to All Fharannain, a wondrous glen it is with green-streamed water, containing multitudes of righteous people and a synod of saints, heavy-headed apple-trees bending to the ground, well-sheltered ivies, ponderous fruit-loaded branches, wild deer and hares and heavy swine, and fat seals sleeping in the sun, seals from the sea beyant. And Sweeny said this.

    All Fharannain, resort of saints,
    fulness of hazels, fine nuts,
    swift water without heat
    coursing its flank.

    Plenteous are its green ivies,
    its mast is coveted;
    the fair heavy apple-trees
    they stoop their arms.

At length Sweeny penetrated to the place the head-saint Moling was, that is, to speak precisely, House-Moling. The Psalter of Kevin was in Moling's presence and he reciting it to his students. Sweeny came to the edge of the well and nibbled at the cresses until Moling said:

Oh madman, that is early eating.

The two of them madman and saint then embarked on a lengthy dialogue to the tune of twenty-nine elegant verses; and then Moling spoke again.

Your arrival here is surely welcome, Sweeny, he said, for it is destined that you should end your life here, and leave the story of your history here and be buried in the churchyard there beyant. And I now bind you that, however much of Erin that you overwander, you will come to me each evening the way I can write your story.

And so it was, Sweeny returning from his wandering to and from the celebrated trees of Erin at vespers each evening, Moling ordering a collation for the mad one at that hour and commanding his cook to give Sweeny a share of the day's milking. One night a dispute arose among the serving-women over the head of Sweeny, the madman being accused of an act of adultery in the hedge by the herd's sister as she went with her measure of milk in the evening to place it in a hole in the cowdung for Sweeny, the herd's sister putting the dishonourable lie in the ear of her brother. He immediately took a spear from the spear-rack in the house and Sweeny's flank being towards him as he lay in the cowdung at his vesper-milk, he was wounded by a spear-cast in the left nipple so that the point went through him and made two halves of his back. An acolyte at the door of the church witnessed the black deed and acquainted Moling, who hastened with a concourse of honourable clerics until the sick man had been forgiven and anointed.

Dark is the deed you have done, Oh herd, said Sweeny, for owing to the wound you have dealt me I cannot henceforth escape through the hedge.

I did not know you were there, said the herd.

By Christ, man, said Sweeny, I have not injured you at all.

Christ's curse on you, Oh herd, said Moling.

Thereafter they had colloquy and talked loudly together until they had achieved a plurality of staves, Sweeny terminating the talking with these verses.

    There was a time when I preferred
    to the low converse of humans
    the accents of the turtle-dove
    fluttering about a pool.